The RO Tales: Aftermath
by Simone of the Zordiak
Summary: After Goetterdaemmerung... Sunnydale Style, Xander goes home.


Disclaimer: I do not own anything, it all belongs to other people, but I can still dream, can I?

I don't own BtVS and neither do I own Ragnarok Online... well except for the littl' character I have created, that's mine, mine, all mine (mwahahaha)

This is a little something after my story " Goetterdaemmerung... Sunnydale Style". Xander goes home after the spell has been ended.

The R.O. Tales  
Aftermath  
Simone of the Zordiak

Xander entered his room, flicked on the light switch, looked around for a moment and sighed. Had it really only been a few hours? It all seemed so unreal to him now. He looked around and felt a bit like he was visiting a museum.

All these items cluttering his room, they seemed to belong to a vastly younger Xander, not the seasoned Battle Wizard he was.

Once more he sighed, as he brushed away comics, two different left socks, a half-finished stake and a more or less ripped up Hawaii shirt, decorated with demon guts.

A short sweet moment of nostalgia rose up inside of him as he pondered his collection of clocks, none of them working correctly.

It looked like he would clear away a lot in the next days, there was so much he had no use of anymore and he needed the space for other things.

He stopped as he took a look at his desk. Laying there were the rest of the items he'd purchased in Ethan's shop, but had not needed for his costume. The ring with the eye sigil and the rest of three bags of costume jewels. Former costume jewels, since it looked like the changing magic of Ethan's spell hadn't cared that he had not worn the jewels at the time of enchantment. Xander basically dropped into his desk chair, sorting through the treasure before him.

The mere jewels he put aside, while they were expensive gems, they were quite normal and he was more interested what had happened to the ones he, Willow and Dawn had designed to be the placeholders for the magical 'cards', that could be used to enchant ones weapons and other equipment. He hadn't bothered counting before, but he guessed that he had to have about two dozen of those small teardrop sharpened stones left. And lined up in front of the heap were the 'wish-stones', the ones he had wanted to have before, but had not yet encountered in the game. He had lined them up before he finished his costume and had named each one of them. Each a card he had not had yet.

With shaking fingers he held up the first, letting the light of his desk-lamp shine through it, to see the image it projected. He wanted to jump up and shout for joy. What he had only wanted to hope was true. The stones he had named before, had taken on the characteristics of the cards he had wanted for so long. Carefully he put them back onto the desk and opened a deskdrawer, fishing around for a moment, before he pulled out four little bags made out of fake black velvet. He upended the bags over his bed, watched the different sorts of dice bounce around before they lied still. Then he took the first bag and placed the five new cardstones into it.

He couldn't help but grin maniacally as he looked at each of them before he put them into the bag. First the Berzebub Card, one of the hardest cards to get, ever. But the results of the use of this cards were very fortunate for a Wizard. If he were to wear this card in a slotted item, his spell casting time would be reduced by 30! Next came the Mistress Card. That one he hadn't wanted for himself, but for Willow, since it allowed her to use certain skills without the use of a gemstone, like she would normally need. Then came the Angelring Card. An Angelring was not hard to defeat, if you were at his level, but since many people flocked to Angelring monsters, he had never been so lucky to pick up a card of this monster. The card would turn the attribute of his armor to 'holy' a very useful thing, if one considered where he lived. The Orc Lord Card was next, slotted into his armor (he made a note to find some more slotted robes he could wear) the magic of this card would reflect 30 of all physical attacks. Last was a card he had heard about, but had never seen himself before. The Scorpion King Card, fused into a weapon of his choice, would up the damage he could do to undead monsters by 20.

Xander tied the bag shut and carefully put it aside. He didn't want to accidentally damage or loose these stones.

Then he focussed his concentration on the other cardstones, the one he hadn't named before. One by one he held them up into the light, to find out what they had become.

One by one he identified the stones and placed them into the second bag. Mentally he named them all:

Santa Poring, Muka, Evil Druid, Rocker, Thief Bug, Sohee, Chonchon, Condor, Willow, Coco, Andre Egg, Sidewinder, Drops, Fabre, Lunatic and Plankton.

Some of them were quite good, the Evil Druid, Santa Poring and Sohee Cards were more than useful for him, he already used a Sohee Cardstone in his shoes, but he wouldn't say no to a second one.

He knotted the second bag shut, like he had done with the first one and sat it aside as well.

Now only the "normal" jewels were left. Thoughtfully he let the precious stones trickle through his hands. Once, barley a few hours ago these stones had been bits of coloured glass, acryl and wax covered with a thin layer of mother of pearl. Because of the spell these jewels now were real and very expensive. Almost as an afterthought he let the stones drop into the third bag. In a way he was rich now, but he had no desire to tell or do something about it. If his parents found out about the stones, they would try to steal or otherwise force him to relinquish this wealth to them. They would squander it away in a few short years. No, better if they didn't knew anything. Later maybe, after he had reached his maturity, he might use some of it to procure a home for himself, books or magical materials to further his studies.

With an audible sigh he doubly sealed the bag shut. He would deposit the bag in his secret little hidey hole later and soup up the protection of said little hideout with a protection spell or two.

All that was now left on the surface of his desk, was the ring. Oh yes, he had bought it as a fallback plan. If he had not been able to finish the necklace or the belt in time, he would have worn the ring. Would have worn Dullahan's Eye, to protect himself of all status changes. Briefly he wondered if that would have protected him from the spell, but decided that the spell would have to activate the ring first and would have affected him as well. So much for that theory. But the ring would have been not as heavy as certain other elements of his costume. He winced as the thought of the belt brought back the realisation just how heavy the belt had become. All he wanted to do right now, was to remove it, but first he had to empty out his carrying space.

He stood up and placed the Arc Wand into the corner right next to his bed, the small guard shield he put next to it. Then he reached out, digging through his carrying space until his hands closed around the object he'd searched for. And he pulled it out. The staff he finally pulled out of the nothingness, that was his personal little magic pocket, was about 7 feet long, made out of gold and other precious metals, decorated with jewels and had the biggest, reddest ruby as its crowning glory. The Wizardy Staff had been extremely hard to come by, but it had been worth it. The two-handed weapon amplified his spells a lot more than the Arc Wand, even if he had to forgo the protection of his shield to use it. Mostly he used it against the strongest, the "Boss-Monster" of the world of Rune-Midgard, or better, he had used it there. With a small sigh he placed the Wizardy Staff next to the Arc Wand, then he removed his Mage Hat and placed it on his desk, the sunglasses following suit.

Again his hands seemed to vanish into nothingness as he brought for his other back-up weapons. The Damascus he always carried with him, it was his oldest back-up dagger, followed right by the Sucsamad. The two he had found on this last adventure were placed next to the two. The Princess Knife and the Exorciser were pretty useful and he had the feeling that they would be as useful in Sunnydale as they had been in Rune-Midgard.

Hmmm... he looked at the daggers he had placed on his desk. He couldn't let them lay there, in the open. Even if his parents didn't came into his room very often, it was better to be save, then sorry. He pulled out the top drawer of his desk and upended it over his bed, letting the collected action figures fall into the bedding. Tomorrow he would sell them, he didn't needed them anymore and the money would be used to start him on his new way of life. Then he went to the bathroom and filched a clean towel. He warped the sheeted daggers into the towel, put the bundle into the drawer and shoved it back into its normal closed position. Better.

Before he continued to empty out his carrying space, he dug three card-boxes out of the chaos that was his room and emptied them. Then he lined them up on his desk and stated digging through his magical pocket again.

His collection, or better, the rest of his collection, of healing herbs he put into the first card-box. First two Red Herbs, to heal lesser wounds, two Yellow Herbs, which were a bit more potent and then two White Herbs, the strongest of the healing Herbs. Three Blue Herbs followed, those were nessessary for all magic-users, since they speed up the regeneration of Mana and lastly he put two Green Herbs into the box, which were good for healing poison.

The box was only halfway filled, but he decided to leave it as it was now, closed the box, tied it shut with a bit of twine and dug through his chaos for a marker. A simple stylised leaf marked the box he had just packed. He put it aside and grabbed the next one.

Carefully he dug through his carrying space until he'd found what he was searching for. Two Yggdrasil Seeds, two Yggdrasil Berries, one bottle of Anodyne, two Aloe Leaflets, three vials with Concentrated Yellow Potion and two vials with Concentrated White Potion were placed into the card-box and a red cross was put on the side of it, marking it his medicine box.

Then he took the last, biggest box, used some old shirts as padding before he carefully put his collection of magical crystals into the box. Three Star Crumbs, two Flame Hearts, two Mystic Frozen, two Great Nature and two Rough Wind crystals wandered into the box, all careful padded with old shirts. Also he didn't use string, but strong tape to close the box. A stylised crystal marked the box.

He was almost done now, there was not that much left in his pockets. Five Mithril coins, which he dropped onto his desk, his old Magik book, a worn out Magic scroll and a Pet incubator, which joined them. The egg he left in the magical carrying space. It didn't weight very much and it would be safer if he left it there.

The only other things left were a set of Ancient gloves, a pair of Ancient earrings and three Clips, which rapidly joined the other items on top of his desk. Now he was ready for the two heavy items he had lugged around the entire evening. The Brisingamen, Freya's necklace was quite heavy, but not as heavy as the Meiningard, the belt he was wearing. If the belt hadn't given him the strength of a giant, he wouldn't have been able to wear it, but now he was quite happy to remove it from his body.

He let the belt drop to the floor, wincing a little at the heavy thump it made, as it met with the ground. The Brisingamen he put into his sock drawer, where it would be perfectly hidden from anybody.

Now all he had to do was to remove the Muffler and shoes, to slip out of the Mage Coat and to slip into his pyjama, to untie the leather string from his hair and brush out the long blue tresses he had gained tonight and he was ready for bed.

Tomorrow he would have a long talk with Willow, Dawn and the others, but right now he was rather tired. The talk could wait a few hours. And he almost fell into the bed and was soon asleep.

o-o-o-

In two other houses, two other, permanent, victims of the Halloween debacle was going through similar motions, even if their items differed from Xander's. But that was to be expected, Xander was a Wizard, Dawn an Assassin and Willow a Priest. Yet they all planned to have a "Talk" with the others the next day.

o-o-o-

Oz looked at the screen, at the tiny avatar he'd created. Short, wild and mossgreen hair and the standard dress of a novice, nothing too exciting for now. "Hmmm...," he muttered as he entered the last commands and watched the screen light up. "Welcome to Rune-Midgard, Oz."

FIN


End file.
